The question I get asked most, by owners at every size, is some version of “how much should I be spending on my finance function?” I have never seen a good answer on one page, so I drew one.
What the finance function should cost
Share of revenue, by annual revenue (log scale)
Swipe sideways to see the whole chart.
Rules of thumb from the businesses I have worked in and with, not a benchmark study. Your margin, industry and how much you outsource will move you around.
Who runs finance, and on what
Typical set-up at each stage
| Revenue | Who runs finance | Team | System |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1–5M | Bookkeeper + tax accountant | 1 | Xero / QuickBooks |
| $5–15M | Financial controller | 2 | Cloud accounting |
| $15–50M | Fractional CFO | 3 to 4 | Cloud, then ERP |
| $50M+ | CFO + tax + auditor | 8+ | ERP |
Two worked examples
Annual finance cost at two revenue levels
| Line | $3M | $30M |
|---|---|---|
| Typical band | About 3% | About 1.5% |
| Bookkeeper / Financial controller | $55k | $180k |
| Accounts payable | – | $80k |
| Payroll | – | $80k |
| Fractional CFO | – | $90k |
| Tax accountant | $30k | $40k |
| Finance systems | $15k | $30k |
| Total | $100k | $500k |
1A rough number beats no number.
A mate of mine owned a hi-fi store. His rule was spend 10% of the system on cables. Not because 10% is magic, but because without a number people either buy the cheapest thing on the shelf or get talked into gold-plated nonsense. I think finance is the same. My number is roughly 1 to 3% of revenue, falling as you scale. It will be wrong for you in the detail, but it will tell you quickly if you are a long way above or below where you should be, and that is the point.
2Complexity, not size, sets where you sit.
I know two businesses turning over about $10M that need completely different finance teams. One is a cafe group: thousands of small sales, casuals on awards paid weekly, four entities and a landlord for each. The other is a consultancy: a dozen big invoices a month, salaried staff, one entity. The cafe group sits well above the band and the consultancy well below it, and both are right. Before you compare yourself to anyone, work out which one you are.
3The step up to a fractional CFO.
Somewhere past $15M the decisions start to bite: a bank facility, a new site, a pricing change, an acquisition someone floats over a beer. In my experience this is the point where the owner is still doing the strategic finance themselves, at the kitchen table after dinner, and the controller is quietly being asked to do a job they were not hired for. Or worse, no one is doing any strategic finance at all and the calls are being made on gut feel. A fractional CFO fixes all of it. You get senior thinking a few days a month, years before a full-time CFO makes sense.
4$50M is a step change, not a step.
Hit two of ASIC’s three tests ($50M revenue, $25M assets, 100 employees) and you are a large proprietary company. That means audited accounts, full accounting standards and real lodgement deadlines. I have watched finance costs jump 50% in a year on the back of it. The part people miss is the system. Xero does not survive a first audit gracefully: auditors want trails, multi-entity consolidation and proper controls, and that pushes you into an ERP. My advice is to make that move around $30 to 40M, on your own timetable, not in the middle of an audit.
Sources Scenario Three work, 2019–26, owner-managed firms A$2m–100m · Corporations Act 2001 s 45A, large proprietary company thresholds · Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks, NetSuite and Dynamics published pricing and customer sizing · Hays and Robert Half Australian finance salary guides, 2026 · CFO Centre and CPA Australia small business finance surveys
General information only, based on my own experience. It is not financial, accounting or legal advice, and it does not account for your circumstances. Check the ASIC thresholds and your reporting obligations before acting.